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NEW HAVEN IN 1784, 



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FRANKLIN BOWDITCB DEXTER. 






NEW HAVEN IN 1784 



( >n the evening of January 21, 1784, the President of Vale 
College wrote in his diary: " This afternoon the Bill or Charter 
of the City of New Haven passed tin' Governor and Council, 
and completes the incorporation of the Mayor, four Aldermen 
and twenty Common Council." It is fitting to recall on tins 
anniversary some character^ tio of the New Haven of L784. 

The town then covered the territory now occupied, not 
only by the present town, lmt also by West Haven, East 
llavcu. North Haven, (the greater part of) Woodbridge, Ham- 
den, and Bethany, in all an area of perhaps ten by thirteen 
miles, or from ten to twelve time- as extensive a- now. 

The inhabitants were estimated at 7, ( .'<;o bouIs; of whom 

3,350, less than almost any one of OUT wards to-dav, were in 
that part which was chartered as a city. There are now within 

the town-limits of 17 s I, by a more than tenfold increase, some 
87,000 inhabitants, while the city proper has multiplied more 
than twentyfold. 

In tin' settled pari of the city (that is, the original nine 
squares, called ••the town-plat," and the south-eastward exten 

sion to the water, known as "the new township"), there were 

Bome 400 dwellings, mostly of wood, hut a g I number of 

brick, and one or two of stone. A nearly contemporaneous 
map tlTToi on our walls Bhows that these dwellings lav almosl 

wholly in the area hounded by Meadow, George, York, (Jrove, 



52 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

Olive and Water streets —the Northern part of this area being 
by far the least fully inhabited. 

The streets were without regular lines of trees, without 
pavements, sidewalks, or names ; but it was an awkward mode 
of designation by localities identified with personal names (as 
we still speak of Cutler Corner) ; and eight months after the 
charter was given, 21 of the principal streets (Broadway, 
Chapel, Cherry, Church, College, Court, Crown, Elm, Fair, 
Fleet, George, Grove, High, Meadow, Olive, Orange, State, 
Temple, Union, Water, and York) received at a city meeting 
their present names. A few may have been already known by 
these titles ; I dare not affirm it of any but College and Chapel 
streets, in both which cases the names were applied only to the 
immediate vicinity of the two college buildings which occa- 
sioned them. A few more had been known by other names : 
thus, the lower part of Church street was called Market street, 
from the market-house at the open intersection of George and 
Church ; State street is called on the map of 1775 Queen 
street, a designation which would seem to go back to distant 
Qneen Anne ; part of George street was long known as 
Leather lane ; York street was sometimes called West street, 
and Grove street North street. 

Of the new names Church street was suggested by the 
Episcopal Church which stood on the east side of that street, a 
little nearer to Chapel than to Center street; Temple street, 
from the two churches on the Green, in front of which it ran ; 
York street, from the name of the " Yorkshire quarter," given 
at the very beginning to that neighborhood where some leading 
immigrants from Yorkshire sat down ; Elm street from the 
already patriarchal trees planted in 1686 in front of the Kev. 
Mr. Pierpont\s dwelling and remaining almost to our day; and 
Court street, because it was intended that it should run across 
the Green past the Court House. 



NEW HAVKN IN L784. 53 

N\'\\ Haven had already been described in print (Peters' 
History of Connecticut) as "the most beautiful town in New 
England"; and one special feature which contributed to this 
impression was the Green, usually called the markel place, 
because the southern border was used for this purpose. Dr. 
Jedidiah Morse, however, states in the first edition of his 
American Geography (1789) that "the beauty of the public 
square lb greatly diminished by the burial ground and several 
of the public buildings winch occupy a considerable part 
of it." 

Chief among these buildings was an elegant and commodi- 
ous brick State House or County Court House, built in 
L761-64 by the State and County jointly, and standing a little 

to the north of, and much nearer Temple street than the 
present Trinity church : it had both east and west doors, fur- 
nished with .-tone >tcp> : tin' first floor was devoted to court 
rooms and offices, and the second to tin- use of the two houses 

of the General Assembly at its < tqtober sessions, while the third 
floor was an open hall. The judge of the County Court was 

Col. .lame- W'adsworth. a graduate at Yale in 171 s . of whose 

college days an interesting reminiscence is preserved in the 

plan which he drew of \e\\ Haven in his senior year and 

which was engraved in L806. 

Next to this building stood what was still the - " New 
Brick " meeting-house of the hirst Church, built in L753 "'7. 
measuring about seventy-five by fifty feet, and holding an aver 
age congregation of not much over nine hundred persons; it 
was on the site <>f the present ( enter ( 'hurch, and was arranged 

internally in a corresponding wa\. with the pulpit toward the 
west, but it was as if the church now standing were shifted 

around sidewise, the north and Bouth length being the greatest, 

and tin- bell-tower at the northern end. 'Idie minister was the 

Rev. Chauncey WTuttelsey, nov» near the cud of his life. 



54 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

having reached the age of sixty-six, and having been settled 
for thirty-six years. 

The earliest secession or separation from the common church 
of the whole town had been the society formed in consequence 
of the Whitefieldian revival, and after a long struggle finally 
recognized' by authority of the General Assembly in 1T59, and 
dubbed with the unaccountable name of the White Haven 
Society.* Their wooden meeting-house, built in 1744 and 
much enlarged in 1764, measuring about sixty feet square, and 
called from its color the Blue Meeting-house, stood on the 
southeast corner of Elm and Church streets. The congregation 
worshiping there had dwindled from a much larger number 
than that of the parent society, to less than eight hundred 
hearers, under the dry preaching of that acute metaphysician, 
Jonathan Edwards, the younger, now aged thirty-nine, and 
for fifteen years their pastor. 

The majority of those who had left Mr. Edwards's meeting, 
as much from dislike of his extreme " New Divinity " views 
as from his dull preaching, had formed a new congregation, 
called the Fair Haven Society, now the largest in town, or 
about one thousand persons, who worshiped in a house the 
size of the " N"ew Brick," built of wood, in 1770, on the site 
of the present church of the United Society. Their minister 
was Mr. Allyn Mather, a young man of thirty-six, now in 
feeble health, and among the congregation was the Rev. 
Samuel Bird, Mr. Edwards's predecessor, and Mr. Mather's 
frequent substitute in the pulpit ; both of them died within 
the year. It is one of ^ the curious felicities of history that 
not only have these two divergent offshoots from the old First 
Church long ago come together in the United Society, but now 
they are preparing to absorb also another organization (the 

* May this name have been given with a covert reference to White- 
field ? 



xkw ii.wK.v in L784. 55 

Third Church) which represented in its origin an opposite 
extreme'of theological belie! 

The great majority of New Haven in L784 was thus of one 
religious faith. But besides these societies of the Congrega- 
tional order there was a small Epiecopal society,not Qumbering 
much over two hundred members, which occupied what was 
distinctively known as "The Church," built in 1754 55, on 
Church Street, with the Rev. Bela Hubbard as rector, now 
forty-four years of age, and having been here Eor fourteen 

years; this was the smallest in size of any of the church huild- 
inga mentioned, somewhat less than sixty by forty feet 

Besides the Episcopalians there was a handful of Sandema- 
m'ans, the most radical of k " New-Light" sects, too much so for 
even Mr. Edwards to tolerate, who had held separate services 
for a dozen years or more ; for a rime they had had two elders 
or ministers in charge of their simple worship, but these 
Leaders had sympathized (as did others of the flock) too plainly 
with Tory principles to remain here in the Revolution ; and 
the remnant that was lefl had dwindled into insignificance. 
There were also one or two Jewish families, the first of which 
appeared here in 1772. 

I have mentioned the chief buildings on the Green. 
There was, besides, a wooden jail, on College Street, built in 
I7:'.">, with Stephen Munson, a college graduate, for jailor; hut 
this dilapidated structure was replaced, late in the year L784, 
by a new jail, built just across the street, under the taxes of 
the college. Adjacent to the jail on the south was the old 

County Court Bouse, the upper floor of which had been used also 

as a State House for many years before the new one was built ; 
in this building, or in a separate building near it. the Hopkins 
Grammar School, which was now in a wvx low condition, was 

kept by Mr. Richard Woodhull, a middle-aged man, of compe- 
tent Learning, whose career as a college tutor had been inter 



56 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

rupted many years before by his conversion to Sandemanian- 
ism, and whose attitude in the Revolution as a non-resistant and 
loyalist had interfered still further with his prospects. Besides 
this, there was a brick school-house on the Elm street side of 
the Green, north of and older than the Fair Haven meeting- 
house, and here youth of both sexes were taught. 

Occupying a good part of the upper Green, which then 
sloped much more than now from west to east, on the sides 
and at the back of the Brick meeting-house, was the 
ancient burial-ground, of irregular shape, which had lately 
been inclosed by a rough board fence. This was, I suppose, 
the only fence on or about the whole Green, the rest being 
entirely open to the surrounding streets, and the more level 
lower Green especially being a common thoroughfare for all 
sorts of travel 

Two hundred and fifty buttonwood and elm trees, set out 
in 1759 around the Green, were now half grown ; of these I 
take it that the solitary buttonwood, still standing opposite the 
First Methodist Church, is a survivor ; the veteran elm at the 
southeast corner of the Green may be older, and a few others 
of our oldest elms may be relics of this planting. On the Green 
itself no trees were standing ; but a single row of elms was 
placed, a year or two later, on the line of Temple street, in 
front of the State House and the churches. 

Next in interest to the Green was the College which 
fronted upon it. The building originally named Yale College, 
which had stood in the front comer of the yard, had recently 
been torn down ; and the three buildings which in 1784 repre- 
sented the College are all now standing, though greatly trans- 
formed. The oldest, Connecticut Hall, or South Middle, built 
in 1750-51, instead of being the four-storied structure which it 
is to-day, had but three stories with a gambrel roof, and lodged 
about one-third of the students ; what is now the Athenaeum, 



NKW IIAVK.V IN 17 s I. 

built in 1761 iV-k was of three stories, with Bteeple and bell, 
and contained the chapel, library, and apparatus-room ; :in<l in 
the rear was tl it* new dining-hall, built in 1782, later the 
chemical laboratory. Besides these there were the President's 
house, built of wood in 1 ~j!ii. and an eleganl mansion for that 
date, standing a little north of the present College street 
Church; and the Prof essor of Divinity's house, also belonging 
to the College, on York street, on the ground now appro* 

printed to the Medical School. 

The President was Dr. Ezra Stiles, one of the most learned 
Americans of his generation, now 56 years of age, having been 
six years in office; while the Prof essor of Divinity, or College 

pa-tor. and at the same time lecturer on theological topics, w a> 

the Rev Samuel Wales, a young man of 36, installed only two 
year- before, and now at the beighl of his usefulness, his 
remarkable power a- a preacher a?- vet iinallected by the 
insidious disease which Boon ended his career. 

Then- were enrolled as -tudeiit- dllring the current term 

(Nov. 12-Jan. L3), the first term of the College, year, 260 
undergraduates, twenty-five per cent, more than in any other 
American college; hut the great irregularity of attendance 
which was then common reduced the number actually present 
to less than 225. The Junior class was instructed by Tutor 
Josiah Meigs, and the Sophomores by Tutor Matthew Talcott 
Russell, while the Freshman class was so unusually large a- to 
he divided under the care of the two youngest tutor-. 

Simeon Baldwin and Henry Ohanning. The other officers 
were, .lame- Ilillhouse, a young lawyer, treasurer, ami Jere- 
miah Atwater. steward. 

I have thus named all that can he called public buildings in 

the town : certainly there was no hank, that luxury did not 

come till L792; no post-office, the infrequent mails were 
handled in a corner of a -mall country-store; no almshouse, — 



58 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

for was it not voted, at the town -meeting in March, 1783, 
" That the selectmen vendue [that is, farm out at auction] the 
poor of the town which are now supported by the town so that 
they may be supported in the cheapest manner ;" no hospital, 
except the town pest-house on Grapevine Point, for the inocu- 
lation and treatment of small-pox, then so formidable ; and no 
public library, though this is less a wonder, since it is also true 
of New Haven in 1884. 

Turning to the classes which made up society, besides the 
professional men already mentioned, there were eight or nine 
lawyers in active practice ; but the very recent growth of that 
profession in importance and public favor, and the losses it had 
suffered through loyalty to the British crown, are shown by 
the fact that the senior member of the bar was Charles 
Chauncey, only thirty-six years of age, while the leader of the 
profession in brilliancy was Pierpont Edwards, two years 
younger, whose annual income of $2000 was said a little later 
to be the largest earned by any lawyer in the State. 

The medical profession had also eight or nine representa- 
tives in what became the city, — the leading physician, alike in 
reputed skill and in social status, being Dr. Leverett Hubbard, 
President of the County Medical Society which was founded 
this same month, who lived in his new stone dwelling still 
standing at the junction of George and Meadow streets. Dr. 
John Spalding, after his removal here in the spring of 1784, 
was considered the leading surgeon. 

As for the business of the city, there was the usual provision 
for domestic trading common to a place of this size. A statis- 
tical enumeration gives fifty-six shops, half a dozen of which 
carried from two to three thousand pounds (sterling) worth of 
goods, and the rest from £500 to £150 worth. "What after- 
wards became the leading retail house of Broome & Piatt was 
not removed here from New York till September, 1784 ; 



NKW II WKN IN 1784. 59 

Shipman, Drake, Howell, Pent, Helms, Austin, are among the 
other leading Dames. There were no local manufactures, — the 
long course of British rule had thoroughly stamped out every- 
thing of that Borl ; the utmost that was done was the ordinary 
spinning and weaving for domestic use, and ;> little ironwork- 
ing and papermaking. 

[n one direction, however, there was activity. New Haven, 
in fulfillment of the dream of its founders and of all the early 
generations, was already of importance as a Bea-port ; it had in 
operation extensive oyster-fisheries; it had it- Union Wharf 
and Long Wharf, though n<»t bo long as now ; already, since 
the announcement of peace, vessels had begun to sail direcl 
for England and Ireland, though the main stay was commerce 
with 'lif West Indies, bo far as they were open to as, in the 
export of horses, oxen, pork, beef, and lumber, with return 
cargoes of sugar and molasses. In L784 thirty-six American 
vessels, with one British ship and one Danish, arc recorded as 
entering thi> port, while thirty-three sea-going vessels were 
<»wned here, all engaged in foreign and West-India trade, as 
agaipst forty that were owned just before the war began in 
1775; at the close of warlike operations in 1781, this number 
had dwindled to one solitary vessel, so that the return of pros- 
perity had been rapid in this branch ; most of those now owned 
were built here or in the immediate neighborhood. There was 
at least one line of packets carrying botb passengers and 
freight to New York weekly during the open season ; and 
another weekly line running to New London and Norwich. 
The collector of customs for the United State- Government 
was Jonathan Pitch, a son of Governor Fitch, of Norwalk, 
and a ^ ale graduate, who had married early a step-daughter of 
President Clap and had served for a generation before the war 
as Bteward of the college. 

The central government was also represented by the post- 



68 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

master, Elias Beers, whose office was next the store of his elder 
brother, Isaac Beers, on the College street side of the corner 
now occupied by the New Haven House. Post-riders took 
letters twice (or in severe weather, once) a week to New York, 
doing a large commission business, to the benefit of their own 
pockets, by the way. The return mails from New York 
divided at New Haven, one going each week via New London 
and Providence to Boston, the other taking the inland route 
to the same destination by Hartford and Springfield, and by 
each route there was a return mail weekly ; the branching of 
the post-routes at this point into two eastward routes, as to this 
day of the railroads, is of course a reminder of the historical 
position of New Haven as the first settlement on the direct 
road between New York and Boston, and thus from the first 
the point to which all travel for New York from the eastward 
converged. 

A stage for Hartford and Springfield left here every Wed- 
nesday ; and another left on Saturday, which connected at 
Hartford with one leaving for Boston on Monday morning, 
which going by the most direct route (Somers, Brookfield, and 
Worcester) did not reach the journey's end until Thursday 
evening ; the post-riders, however, moved more rapidly than 
this. 

The New Haven .post-office was the receiving-office for all 
the inland region not served by the Hartford, New York, and 
New London offices ; thus, not only all letters for such near 
points as Cheshire, Wallingford, and Waterbury, but all for 
towns as far off as Litchfield and New Milford were left here, 
to be delivered to any one bound for those parts ; if not soon 
called for, they were advertised in the New Haven newspaper, 
and after three months from that date, were sent to the Dead 
Letter department of the General post-office at Philadelphia, 
which was in charge of Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster-General. 



XKW II A V F.N LIT 1784 61 

The post-office adjoined Isaac Beers'e store,; and this in- 
troducea u> to what was, after the College, the intellectual 
center (in a sense) of Now Haven. The store was a part of 
the proprietor's bonse, which was also an inn, and he sold — be- 
sides books — genera] groceries, and the best of gin and brandy 
Of books lie was. I think, one of the largest direct importers 
in the United State-: and very remarkable arc the lists of \\\> 
Latest acquisitions which he publishes now and then in the 
weekly newspaper, covering sometimes an entire page. 

Besides this, there was at Least one other general book- 
Btore, of less pretensions, that of Daggett and Fitch; and one 
specially devoted to Bchool-books, kept by A.bel Morse, the 
readier of a select school for -iris; Goodrich and Darling, 

druggists, also dealt in books. The i>tli< f Thomas and 

Samuel Green, who printed the newspaper and Buch pam- 
phlets as the divines and politicians of the neighborhood 
furnished tor publication, was over Elias Shopman's Btore, 
which was directly opposite tin- post-office, on College and 
Chapel streets, the site of Townsend's Block; hut they, I sup- 
pose, sold little hut their own publications. 

The new-paper was the Connecticut Journal, begun by the 
Bame publishers in 17<'>7, and continuing nnder various propri- 
etors until l^:'..~>. It appeared every Wednesday on a sheet <>t' 

four pages, aboul fourteen by nine or ten inches in size, and 

was poorly edited, even for that day; so that we may not 
wonder that an early evidence of progress in the new city 
should have been the establishment, in May, 1784, of a second 
paper, the New Haven Gazette, price eight shillings a year, t<> 
edit which Josiab Meigs resigned his College tutorship. 

In connection with the local publishing business may he 
mentioned the name <»t' Ahel Buell, the ingenious mechanic, — 
at various rime- in hi- life, engraver, type-founder, coiner, and 
goldsmith,— who advertise- in March, L784, a map <>t' the 



62 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

United States, the first ever compiled, engraved, and finished 
by one hand ; and also the name of Amos Doolittle, the 
earliest copper-plate engraver in America, whose shop for 
sign-painting and the higher branches of his art was on the 
present College square, fronting the Green. 

Passing to the political and social condition of the city, we 
are to remember that the whole country had just come out of 
an exhausting war ; and New Haven had suffered her full 
share, much beyond the most of New England. A sermon 
just preached by the Rev. Benjamin Trumbull, of North 
Haven, at the celebration on the news of the Definitive Treaty 
of Peace, estimates the loss of New Haven in soldiers and 
seamen on the American side during the war at 210 ; and the 
loss of property by the raid of the British troops on this town 
was reckoned at over £30,800, in a depreciated currency. 

But peace was now secured, and the general sentiment 
among the leaders of opinion in the town was hopeful of 
brighter days than ever ; although the town taxes were four- 
pence on the pound, or nearly two cents on the dollar, double 
the usual rate before the war, and this high figure was supple- 
mented moreover by state taxes of three shillings and twopence 
(sixteen cents on the dollar). 

The fullest picture of our modern daily life is the news- 
paper ; but for 1784 The Connecticut Journal is a poor help. 
It is guiltless of anything so direct as an editorial, and almost 
equally guiltless of contributions from correspondents ; the 
local editor and the interviewer are alike unknown. In other 
words, the entire paper is made up of selections from other 
sheets, of foreign news (usually about ten weeks old), of very 
scanty items from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and a few 
other prominent places, and of advertisements. The selections 
bear largely at this date on the novel situation of the United 
States, just formally acknowledged as independent, They 



NKU SAVES IN 1 784. 6 I 

feed the popular Interest in subjects which we know were 
under discussion elsewhere,- such as, preeminently, the 
n|»]>r<>\ al or non-approval of the so-called Commutatiori Hill. 
recently passed by the Congress of the Confederation, for com- 
muting the half -pay f'<»r life, previously voted to Revolutionary 
officers Mini soldiers, into five years' full pay in one gross Bum : 
the change was really a shrewd piece of economy for the l:"\ 
ernment, and yel was most unpopular, especially in New 
England; a convention met at Middletown, in December, 
17^'.. t" record Connecticut's dissent from such a creation of a 
moneyed aristocracy. 

Another timely Bubject, <>( far-reaching consequences, was 
the question of giving Congress the right <«» levy moderate 
import duties on specified articles, tor meeting the interest on 
the public debt; the principle of Federal government was 
involved ; approval of the impost meant adhesion to the theory 
of a strong central government a- accessary, while disapproval 
was a preference for the existing Confederation, already on its 
downward career to powerlessness and contempt. 

In these twin disputes, the Connecticut Legislature com- 
mitted itself to the policy of narrowness and conservatism by 
resolving in 1 7 s -"> that the requisitions of Congress were not 
valid until after the approval of the State; and in January, 
LT84, they voted down (69 to -'17) the impost recommended by 
Congress, the New Eaven representative voting with the 
majority. At the next election, bowever, the | pic repudia- 
ted the action of their deputies ; and Pierpont Edwards and 
James Eillhouse, of New Baven, concurred with the -rent 
majority of the new General Assembly in granting Congress 
the desired authority to raise this slender revenue. 

The current advertisements show the great confusion of 

the time in respect to financial standards. <J I> are on sale 

for cash, for hank notes, for Morris'- notes, Mr. Eillegas' notes, 



64 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

Pickering's certificates, soldiers' notes, State money, all kinds 
of lumber, grain, oxen, cows, potash, country produce, etc., 
etc. Bank notes were the issues of the bank at Philadelphia, 
the only institution of the kind in the Union ; Morris's notes 
were the issues of treasury-notes by Robert Morris, superinten- 
dent of finance of the United States ; Hillegas was the treas- 
urer of Congress, and Pickering was Quartermaster-General; 
soldiers' notes were the interest-bearing certificates entitling 
the army to their half -pay for life, or to full pay for five years ; 
and State money meant the outstanding bills of credit or paper 
money issued in the early years of the war by the State govern- 
ment, at convenient denominations, from two pence to two 
pounds. By cash was meant at that date, before Gouverneur 
Morris's system of decimal currency (which we now use) had 
been adopted by Congress, and a mint set up, a miscellaneous 
foreign coinage, mainly English and Spanish, with a few 
coppers of local origin ; it was through familiarity with the 
Spanish currency, that the tenti dollar was already in general 
use. 

Socially, the characteristics of New Haven were much the 
same as throughout New England. The population was still 
of pure English descent, and a homely familiarity of inter- 
course prevailed ; while the adventuring spirit of commercial 
life, traversing the seas, tended to widen views, and the 
presence of the College was felt as a cultivating influence, 
bringing hither a constant succession of intelligent and famous 
visitors. The specially cold winter of 1783-4 was not a 
favorable season for travel, but President Stiles's diary records 
the entertainment, among others, of Major General John 
Sullivan, of New Hampshire, of Mr. Gay, a son of the poet, of 
Ira Allen, a brother of Ethan Allen, and one of the founders 
of Vermont, and of John Ledyard, the distinguished traveler. 

T have not time to dwell on details of the social life of a. 



NEW IIAVKN IN 1 , >l. 65 

century ago: if it was not the hurried and feverish life of the 
present, no more was it the ascetic and constrained life of a 
century earlier; there was abundance of gaiety of a simple 
sort; and the shopkeepers publish prompt advertisements of 
the arrival of fresh invoicesof "gentlemen and ladies' dancing- 
glove's for the Cit\ Ajssembly," of "chip-hata of the newest 
taste," of "new figured, fashionable cotton chintz and calicoes, 
proper for ladies' winter dress," of "eleganl figured shauls," 
of "ladies' tiffany balloon hats." and so on ad mjmitum, — 
showing that human nature had the same kind of Interest then 

as now. 

Ai one part of their social life, we must remember this as 
the time when domestic slavery was general in New Haven. 
The importing of Blaves was forbidden since 1774, but the 
paper- have occasional, not frequent advertisements for the 
Bale of likely negroes, or it may be a family of negroes, in 
respect to whom "a good title will be given;" sometimes it is 
for a term of years (perhaps till the attainment of legal 
majority, when by the will of some former owner freedom 
was to he given), and sometimes it is noted that, in thi' laek of 
ready money, rum and sugar will he taken in part payment 
The relation- of masters and slaves were in most cases here the 
best possible; vet sensible men were uneasy under the incon- 
sistency of the system, ami President Stile,- writes in his diary, 

in December, 17^'>: "The constant annual importation of 

negroes into America ami the WY-t Indie- i- supposed to have 
been of late years about 60,000. I> it possible to think of this 
without horror '." 

I pa-- on to the Bpecial circumstances which made New 

Haven a city. 

The origin of the movement it mav he diflicnlt to trace. 

Certainly we cannol adopt the earliest date- that has been 
assigned for such an origin; for that would commit as to the 



66 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

acceptance of a statement by the notoriously inaccurate Samuel 
Peters, who in giving in his History of Connecticut (1781) the 
story of the Phantom Ship, which sailed from this port in 
1647, says that she carried a request for a patent for the 
colony and for a charter for the city of New Haven ; this part 
of his tale is a pure fabrication. 

The first step which I can fix in the genealogy of the 
charter is a vote in town-meeting, December 9, 1771, in these 
words : " Whereas a motion was made to the town that this 
town might have the privileges of a city, and that proper meas- 
ures might be taken to obtain the same, it is thereupon Voted 
that Roger Sherman " [and seventeen others] " be a Committee 
to take the same into consideration and judge of the motion 
what is best for the town to do with regard to the same and 
report thereupon to the town at another town-meeting. 1 ' This 
committee never reported, so far as the records show, nor do 
the public prints of the day refer to the matter. Roger Sher- 
man, the chairman, then fifty years old, and for ten years a 
resident of New Haven, was already eminent in the regards of 
his fellow-townsmen, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 
and a member of the Governor's Council, or Upper House of 
the Assembly, though still keeping a small country-store oppo- 
site the College on Chapel street. 

Ten years passed without further sign, until in December, 
1781, the town was obliged to take cognizance of efforts which 
had lately been gathering strength, for the creation of new 
towns from the more distant parts of New Haven. At a 
town-meeting of this date, a committee was therefore appointed 
to report a plan for the division of the town into several 
distinct townships ; and this committee reported the same 
month in favor of setting off the portions which afterwards 
became Woodbridge, East Haven, and North Haven. These 
towns were not in fact incorporated until after the city of 



NKW HAVEN IX 1784. f,7 

New Haven : hut the one movement was a complement of the 
other. 

A.t the close of the Revolution the two most prosperous 
centers of population in this country were Philadelphia, with 
nearly 30,000 inhabitants, and New Fork, with a little ander 
25,000. Both were cities : New Fork having received a 
charter from James II. in L686, during the spasm of liberal 
zeal which marked the beginning of liis reign; ami Philadel- 
phia having been similarly endowed in 17<>i by the proprietor 
of Pennsylvania, the ardent friend and quondam political 
mentor of James II. Besides these, I do not recall any other 
incorporated cities in the Tnion at this date, except Albany, 
winch was chartered at the same time and under the same 

circumstances as New York, hut was now of less population 
than New Haven, and Richmond, incorporated in L 782, but 
only a small village in point of numbers. 

The prosperity and size of Philadelphia and New York 
were, however, objects of emulation ; and there i> some evi- 
dence that it was from an ambition of rivaling their prominence, 
that a charter wasdesired for New Eaven This may haw been 
especially in view of the long occupation of New York by the 
British, and a consequent interruption of the previous depen- 
dence of our dealer.- on New York merchants for imports^from 
England and for the return of remittances thither ; New Fork 
had just been evacuated, and might not the two places begin 

new careers more on an equality, if New Haven were elevated 
to the dignity of a city \ 

To recur to President Stiles'e diary, we have this entry on 
October 20, L783: "Sign'd a petition to the Assembly for 
incorporating New Eaven as a city." The Assembly was then 
holding its regular fall session in New Eaven, and so continued 
until November 1, when it adjourned tomeet again in January 
in a special session, for the purpose of revising the law- of 



68 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

the State. The October session was made memorable by the 
announcement of Governor Trumbull's determination to retire 
from public life at the next election, on account of his advanced 
age (73). 

The petition referred to by Dr. Stiles is on file (with 214 
signatures) in the State Library. It bases the desired action 
on the hindrances to an extension of commerce, which " arise 
for want of a due regulation of the internal police" of the 
town. Specifically, "it is matter of no small importance that 
wharves, streets and highways, be commodious for business, 
and kept continually in good repair ;" and such a result can- 
not be attained, unless the memorialists have a jurisdiction of 
their own. Hence the petition, that the inhabitants within 
specified limits " be made a corporation," with power to enact 
by-laws, and that a Court be constituted for the same jurisdic- 
tion. A bill brought in in accordance with this petition was 
passed at the same session by the Upper House ; but the 
Lower House insisted that it be referred to the adjourned 
session for their consideration, and it was so referred. 

On the 21st of November, Dr. Stiles writes : "Examining 
the Act or Charter proposed for the City of New Haven." 
This interval of examination resulted in making the final draft 
of the charter quite different in details from that presented in 
October. 

The Assembly was to meet in New Haven on Thursday, 
January 8, 1784 ; and on Monday, January 5, at a town-meet- 
ing, with Roger Sherman in the chair, a resolution was passed, 
" requesting the representatives in the Assembly," who were 
Captain Henry Daggett and Captain Jesse Ford, "to exert 
themselves that the Act for incorporating a part of the town 
be passed with all convenient speed." 

Owing to unusually bad traveling, the adjourned session 
did not open until Tuesday, January 13. The presiding officer 



NKW IIAVI'.N IN IY84. 69 

of the Upper Souse was Eis Excellency Governor Jonathan 
Trumbnll, of Lebanon, who. as was his cnstom, Lodged at the 
house of President Stiles; while the Speaker of the Lower 
House was the Hon. Colonel William Williams, also of Leb- 
anon, well known as a Bigner of the Declaration of 1 T T * » . 

As usual, all Acts passed by the Assembly arc dated as of 
the first day of the session, and as usual the weekly newspapers 
give none of the interesting details of legislative proceedings; 
so that ir is only from the imprinted pages of Dr. Stiles's Lit- 
erary Diary that we gain the exact knowledge of the day when 
the charter was finally passed. 

The next week's Connecticut Journal, however, contains 
the notification of the first meeting of the city, to he held on 
February 1": and in the Journal of February 4 appears an 
advertisement by the selectmen of the town, announcing that, 

in accordance with a paragraph in the act of incorporation of 

the city, an opportunity will he given on Thursday. February 
5, for any who are qualified to become freemen of the State, 

hut have not yet taken the freeman's oath, to appear and be 
admitted, BO a- to participate in the first city election. 

( )n the day appointed. Dr. Stiles was among those taking 
the oath ; and he records that the total number in the city 
who are qualified to become freemen, as now certified by the 

■mien, i- three hundred and forty-three, of whom fifty-five 

(about one-sixth) are college graduates; eighty-two of the 
three hundred and forty-three (aboul one-fourth) have not 
taken the freeman's oath, -some being absent, Bome disabled, 

BOme indifferent. The full list, which he appends, i^ of great 
interest, and might instructively he compared, on the one ha ml. 
with the roll of original planters, in L640, and on the other hand 
with tlu- roll of our voters to-day. In 17 s ! the families most 

Largely represented in the voting population were, Austin (a 

name introduced in the generation after the settlement, not 



70 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

among the first-comers) and Trowbridge, the name which has 
multiplied beyond any other in the original company ; next 
followed Atwater, Bishop, Hotchkiss, Munson, Bradley, Mix, 
Thompson, and Townsend. 

Dr. Stiles further judges that there were about six hundred 
adult males living within the city limits, showing that nearly 
every other man was disfranchised, either by the operation of 
the qualification limiting suffrage to those holding real estate 
which would yield a rental of £2 per annum, or personal 
estate worth £40, or else disfranchised by their loyalty to Great 
Britain in the late war. 

The election of city officers was appointed for February 10 ; 
and as the General Assembly was still in session, the third 
story of the State House was the place of meeting. Of the 
261 freemen who had qualified, over 250, says Dr. Stiles, 
attended at the opening of the polls, but only 249 votes were 
recorded on the first ballot, that for mayor ; of these just the 
number necessary for a choice, 125, were cast for Roger Sher- 
man, 102 for Deacon Thomas Howell, and 22 for Thomas 
Darling. 

Mr. Sherman was now in his 63d year, and was unquestion- 
ably the most distinguished resident of the new city. That he 
did not carry a larger vote may have been due to his personal 
characteristics ; that aristocratic, chilling reserve of manner 
which his juniors have reported of him, may well have stood 
in the way of popularity. Moreover, there were undercurrents 
of feeling, as we shall see, that would have prevented a cordial 
uniting on any one. It is an evidence of Mr. Sherman's 
acknowledged merits that at the time of this election he was 
absent, in Annapolis, where he had been for a month in attend- 
ance as a member of Congress, which had migrated south- 
wards, pending the expected establishment of a capital near 
the falls of the Potomac. 



NKW HAVEN IN 1784. 71 

Sherman's chief competitor for the mayoralty, Deacon 

Howell of the I'irst Church, now in bis 65th war. was chosen 
Senior Alderman, and thus in tlie Mayor's absence became the 
active head of the government ; it is remarkable that neither 
of the two was of old New Haven stock, Sherman being a 
native of Massachusetts, and Howell's father having Immi- 
grated from Long bland. 

The other aldermen were Samuel Bishop, previously iden- 
tified with the town-clerk's otHce for forty years, and brought 

into wide notoriety at the end of his long life a- President 

Jefferson's appointee to the collectorship of the port; Deacon 
David Austin, of the White Haven Church ; and Isaac Beers', 
the bookseller. The interest in the election of twenty common 
councilmen, which was not completed till the third day, 
dwindled so rapidly that the total number of votes for the last 
places was only about one hundred. At the conclusion of the 
election (February L2) all the new officials except the absent 
mayor were sworn in. and the city government was finally 
organized. 

Dr. Stiles's valuable diary gives an inside view of the 
election, under date of February 13, when he >ays : "The city 
politic- arc founded in an endeavor silently to bring Tories 
into an equality and supremacy among the Whigs. The 
Episcopalians arc all Tories but two, and all qualified on this 
occasion, though despising ( \mgress government before; they 
may perhaps be forty voters. There may be twenty or thirty 
of Mr. Whittelsey's meeting added to these. Perhaps one- 
third of the citizens," that is. 1 Buppose, one-third of the 261 
who had taken the freeman's oath, "may be hearty Tories, 

one-third Whigs, ami one-third indifferent. Mixing all up 
together, the election has conic out. Mayor and two Aldermen. 

Whigs; two Aldermen. Tories. Of the Common Council, 

five Whig-, five tlexibles but in heart Whig8, eight Tories. 



72 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

The two Sheriffs," Elias Stilwell and Parsons Clark, "and 
Treasurer," Hezekiah Sahin, "Whigs; the first Sheriff firm, 
the other flexible." 

From these hints it would appear that the so-called "Tory" 
element had been concerned in the entire movement for a 
charter. 1 may add that at a meeting held on March 8, on 
the motion of Fierpont Edwards, a committee of eight was 
appointed, " to consider of the propriety and expediency of 
admitting as inhabitants of this town persons who in the 
course of the late war have adhered to the cause of Great 
Britain against these United States, and are of fair characters, 
and will be good and useful members of society and faithful 
citizens of this State." In their report, made the same day, 
this committee deduced from the independence of the several 
States and the spirit of peace and philanthropy displayed in 
the " Recommendations " of Congress based on the treaty of 
peace, that it was in point of law proper to admit such as 
are above described, but not any who were guilty of unauthor- 
ized plundering and murder. As for expediency, they sug- 
gested that no nation is truly great unless it is also distin- 
guished for justice and magnanimity ; and argued that it 
would be magnanimous to restore these persons, and especially 
that the commercial future of New Haven made it desirable 
thus to increase its inhabitants. The report was at once 
accepted and approved by the town. Such an ardent patriot 
as Dr. Stiles dismisses the unpalatable theme with this curt 
entry in his diary : " This day town-meeting voted to re-admit 
the Tories." 

The question of the treatment of the loyalists had for 
months previous been under heated discussion all over the 
Union ; and not least in New Haven, where the argument was 
strongly urged that a sound commercial policy dictated the 
invitation hither of some of the numerous gentlemen of large 



NKW HAVEN IN 17 s I. 7:*. 

property and influential connections in business, who bad been 
dislodged from their homes and would gladly begin life anew 
among a congenial people. A-ttempts had been made to mould 
public opinion by newspaper appeals ; and twice orthrice with 
special ingenuity by printing extracts from letters -aid to bave 
been received from friends in Europe; one such, for instance, 
in the Journal of January 7. represented that Dr. Franklin 
and Mr. .lav. now abroad for the negotiation of peace, were 
much hurt at the harsh measures adopted toward loyalists. By 
sucb means and by more direct arguments, the way was quietly 
prepared for a popular amnesty, which was thus voted in 
March. L 784, just a year altera former town-meeting, when 
the New Haven representatives were solemnly instructed by 
their constituents " to use their influence with the next < reneral 
Assembly in an especial manner, to prevent the return of any 
of those miscreants who have deserted their country's cause 
and joined the enemies of this and the United State- of Amer- 
ica, during their late contest:" — a striking instance of rapid 
conversion. 

I add before closing a reference to two peculiar provisions 
of the charter. It was enacted that the mayor's tenure of 
office should be "during the pleasure of the General Assem- 
bly," which was equivalent to a life appointment, and 80 proved 
in practice; for Mayor Sherman retained the position until 
his death in 17'.'-'!. when Samuel Bishop succeeded, continuing 
till his death in L803 ; the third incumbent, Elizur Goodrich, 
held office till bis resignation in L822, and bis successor, 
George Hoadly, till his resignation in L82 6, when by vote of 
the city a requesl was preferred to the Assembly, which 
resulted in the substitution of an annual election. 

Another provision of the charter which needs comment is 
the proclamation that power is conferred on the city to 
exchange the upper part of the Green, west of the line of the 
10 



IKAY 29 1907 



74 CENTENNIAL OF NEW HAVEN. 

churches, for other land, for highways, or another green else- 
where. I do not know that my exchange was ever proposed 
or attempted ; but the insertion in the charter of express 
authority for the purpose, was perhaps meant to intimate that 
the city had the State government at its back in asserting 
authority over the public gre -n, as against the claims preferred 
by the " Proprietors of Coi imon and Undivided Lands in 
New Haven.'-* 

The city government thus organized was immediately put 
into operation: The example was contagious ; New London 
asked for and received a city charter at the same session of the 
legislature, and Hartford, Norwich, and Middletown, at the 
succeeding one. It was the era of upbuilding and of prepara- 
tion, — they hardly knew for what ; yet we may doubt if in 
their proudest dreams the citizens of 1784 anticipated the 
growth which has come to pass. Certainly we know that 
public sentiment had been incredulous, when Dr. Stiles in the 
last election sermon had annoi 'iced it "probable that within 
a century from our independence the sun will shine on fifty 
millions of inhabitants in the United States." But the century 
has gone by ; and the prophecy has very little exceeded the 
truth. We can at least learn the lesson, not to underrate the 
progress which is possible in the century to come, knowing 
that the present is as full of fruit and of promise as the past, 
and that the resistless tide of time which sweeps down individ- 
uals and generations in its u ceaseless current," only enlarges 
and deepens the hold of institutions which subserve useful 
ends and are wisely and just!}' administered. 

* As an instance of these claims it may be mentioned that the loca- 
tion of the Fair Haven meeting-house (represented at present by the 
United Church) on the Green in 1 70 was by a vote of the " Proprietors." 



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